Zalson plays one turn at a time [COMPLETE]

[Zalson]

And I'd like to do some things I've never done before. Like let's go for a monk economy.

Question for ye knowledgeable ones:

1: Is the AP a buildable wonder if I don't have Diplo Victory enabled? It seems like it is not. From what I can tell, i'd need AP, Sankore, and Spiral Minaret; is a monk econ worth pursuing without the AP?

[T-hawk]

The Apostolic Palace is not buildable if diplomatic victory is not enabled.

People mean different things by monk economy. Sometimes they mean just spreading missionaries to power a shrine. Sometimes they mean building monasteries and temples for the AP/Sankore/Spiral Minaret bonus. Neither of those is actually an economy, just a small side stream of income, that's nowhere near replacing cottages or trade routes or specialists for income.

Since you're Spiritual, I'd say the half-cost temples are good enough to be worth building for themselves and for Sankore, even without the AP hammers. Spiral Minaret ends up not worthwhile because of the tech investment for Divine Right which you don't otherwise need at all.

[Zalson]

Thanks, T-Hawk. I think my monk economy is going to be two shrines (Hindu + Jewish) and probably Sankore for temples; that'll be 40 hammers for +1 gold and +2 bpt and +1 gpt (probably more like +3 when it gets down to it).

Reading some of the vets games, I've realized that I have expanded at a galacial pace. Only 16 cities on T150? For shame.

I'll try to remedy that with 10 more cities in the next 20 turns or so. I think my economy can handle that

[Mardoc]

Monk econ isn't powerful enough to rely on by itself, but it makes a nice supplement to whatever other economy you've got. You've already got the main prereqs, it appears: you're Spiritual for cheap Temples and you've got a well-spread religion. It's best if you already want to build monasteries and temples for their own benefits, which...you've been building monasteries and Spi temples make cheap happy, so you've got that covered.

I believe AP is not buildable without diplo victory; a lot of the recent Pitbosses have started making diplo victory illegal in houserules instead of game settings to get around this. The other wonders seem reasonable enough to try for, though.

Fake edit: T-Hawk's got a point, Minaret is unlikely to pay for the cost of getting to it. Cost of Divine Right plus hammers that worst-case could have been wealth takes a long time to pay back at 2 gpt/building. Even if we assume you'd build a temple in every city and a monastery in half of them, 3gpt/city with 14 cities is only 42 gpt. General rule of thumb is that it's feasible to build investments that pay back in 20-30 turns, which means that things which take longer aren't usually your best use of stuff. Not sure on the exact price of Divine Right, but I suspect it's more than the 800-1200 beakers that rule of thumb would imply.

[Mardoc]

Thanks, T-Hawk. I think my monk economy is going to be two shrines (Hindu + Jewish) and probably Sankore for temples; that'll be 40 hammers for +1 gold and +2 bpt and +1 gpt (probably more like +3 when it gets down to it).

I suspect that the second shrine isn't worth building unless the religion is already well-spread. Spreading your primary religion, the one that grants religious civics and happiness and such is usually worthwhile, but a second religion for only 1 gpt/city and late game happiness isn't worth the effort.

Reading some of the vets games, I've realized that I have expanded at a galacial pace. Only 16 cities on T150? For shame.

I'll try to remedy that with 10 more cities in the next 20 turns or so. I think my economy can handle that

Do bear in mind that this is map-dependent. You're on a natural map, most points of comparison are on a mapmaker-lush map.

Still a good idea to build more cities given that you've got Currency and Code of Laws, but don't beat yourself up too much .

[Krill]

Even if you have a double holy city, I don't think the second shrine is really worth it unless it gets autospread to an AI and the AI then spreads it.

[Zalson]

RE: the second shrine:

Ramesses built in Thebes already. So that's spending 40 h to get 2 gpt (market, grocer, bank in Thebes). That repays in, what, 10 turns (wealth is 1/2 production right? or is it 100% production). Even if it repays in 20 turns, i think that's still worth it?

I'm thinking something like Basra will be on missionary duty for some time. Especially if I have 8 cities coming in up north in the near future.

[T-hawk]

It will be quite some time until you have any gold multipliers in Thebes, let alone the whole +100%. 40h for 1gpt is not a good payback ratio, there's plenty of other things you can do that are better than that. Also it's more than 40h because missionaries can fail, your average cost is really something like 48h per city.

In general, it's pretty much never worthwhile to spread a second religion just for shrine purposes.

[Mardoc]

Oh! I was assuming you'd have to come up with the Great Prophet yourself. In which case bulbing or golden ages would likely be more profitable. Simply growing the one you conquered may be worthwhile.

Of course, you don't have the market, grocer, and bank in Thebes yet, and it's 40h times a factor to account for the occasional failed spread, plus I believe Wealth is 1 for 1, so it's probably not worthwhile at the moment. Payback on the order of 40-50 turns, plus it only starts counting after the missionary travels. I can see a case for at least building a Hindu monastery or two to preserve the option later on, though. Once you get Thebes' multipliers up, spreading Hinduism will probably be better than Wealth.

I'm shaky on how the religious wonders work. I sort of think that they only apply benefits to buildings of your state religion. If I'm wrong, and spreading Hindu gives you a second chance to build cheap temples worth 1 and 2 bpt in addition to the income in Thebes, then I'd think it's worth doing.

[Sareln]

They definitely only apply the bonus to buildings of your state religion. This includes the shrine itself, temples, monasteries, and the cathedral/mandir/stupa/etc.